The conventional macroeconomic theory of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, based on the assumption that the working of complex monetary economy could be analysed on the same principles as those of barter exchange, has demonstrably failed. This book provides a thorough rethinking of the nature of a monetary economy. It builds upon a complete theory of the domestic and international monetary macro-economy, and of macroeconomic policy for the modern age. Central to the analys...

This edited volume presents the key unresolved debates in monetary macroeconomics, covering the five topics of budget, trade, taxes, exchange rates and monetary policy. For each topic, there are two authors — one arguing for a certain policy and one against. The book takes an approach eschewing mathematics or econometrics, instead presenting arguments in the spirit of political economy - while incorporating the most recent thinking in macroeconomics. This approach, combined with the object...

This book provides a comprehensive overview, in the form of eight long essays, of the evolution of monetary theory over the three-quarters of century, from the time of Keynes to the present day. The essays are originally based on lecture notes from a graduate course on Advanced Monetary Economics offered at York University, Toronto, written in the style of academic papers. The essays are mathematical in method — but also take a historical perspective, tracing the evolution of monetary thou...

This book provides a comprehensive re-working of the basic principles of monetary macroeconomics in an alternative monetary model (AMM) of economic growth, the business cycle, inflation and income distribution. These principles differ considerably from those advanced in the standard macroeconomics literature and in textbooks. However, the latter have been demonstrably unsuccessful in the promotion of usable macroeconomic policy advice for the past several years, actually decades. A differe...

Money, Financial Institutions and Macroeconomics presents a comparative and international perspective on the current state of research in monetary theory, and the application of monetary theory to important policy issues. The main emphasis is on views stressing the importance of credit creation in the monetary process, in a tradition which arguably encompasses Wicksell, the later Swedes and the Austrians, through the later Hicks, the circuit school and contemporary post-Keynesians...

This volume provocatively rethinks the economics, politics and sociology of money and examines the classic question of what is money. Starting from the two dominant views of money, as neutral instrument and as social relation, What is Money? presents a thematic, interdisciplinary approach which points to a definitive statement on money.Bringing together a variety of neclassical and heterodox perspectives, this work collects the latest thinking of some of the best-known econ...

Contrary to common belief, macroeconomics is not merely a theory of aggregates, and cannot be constructed from individual behaviour. Both nationally and internationally, there are economic laws that are logically independent of economic agents’ behaviour. These are the macroeconomic foundations of macroeconomics.Presenting cutting-edge material, Alvaro Cencini explores these foundations, and shows that the introduction of money entails economics being interpreted conceptually not m...

First published in 1964, this is a study of the extreme inequalities in the ownership of property, in economies across the globe. Professor Meade examines in depth the economic, demographic and social factors which lead to such inequalities. He considers a wide range of remedial policies – educational development, reformed death duties and capital taxes, demographic policies, trade union action, the socialization of property, the development of a property-owning democracy, the expansion of...

Everybody uses money every day, but we rarely stop to think about how money works. In this book, scholars from different disciplines seek to answer that question; from historians to economists, sociologists, a philosopher and a physicist. Money works as a social construction because we have mutual expectations that support its use – despite the seeming irrationality of trading valuable things or doing strenuous work for pieces of paper or numbers in accounts.Recently, there has bee...

The present global monetary regime is based on floating among the major advanced countries. A key underlying factor behind the present regime is credibility to maintain stable monetary policies. The origin of credibility in monetary regimes goes back to the pre-1914 classical gold standard. In that regime, adherence by central banks to the rule of convertibility of national currencies in terms of a fixed weight of gold provided a nominal anchor to the price level. Between 1914 and the pres...

Orthodox economics operates within a hypothesized world of perfect competition in which perfect consumers and firms act to bring about supposedly optimal outcomes. The discrepancies between this model and the reality it claims to address are then attributed to particular imperfections in reality itself. Most heterodox economists seize on this fact and insist that the world is characterized by imperfect competition. But this only ties them to the notion of perfect competition, which remains...

Banks of all sorts are troubled institutions. The cost of public bail-outs associated with the subprime crisis in the United States alone may be as high as US$5 trillion. What is the problem with banks? Why do they seem to be at the centre of economic and financial turmoil down through the ages? In this provocative and timely book, Rethel and Sinclair seek answers to these questions, arguing that banks suffer from perennial problems, and that developments in the financial markets and gover...